What makes this story important is how it serves as a kind front line attack in the publicity wars to liberalize American labor markets so that they conform to the standards of abstract theory. This has been coming for a long time and I think that this is one of the first clear and well argued examples of how the right will direct ire within the middle class in way that distracts attention from the abuses of established interests (bankers, upper management, insurance companies, hospitals) that seem to be intractable. The logic is that the market should decide. Unfortunately what the market has decided in a globalizing economy is that Americans should make less money than they once did. This may be fair from a global perspective, but it places a bit of a cognitive strain on those who, with a straight face, claim that they support American interests in the world. Read the rest of this entry »